Chapter 41: 27|Memories

My eyes widened when Aiden lunged at me. I squeaked and moved out as he slipped on the fallen pancake. Asher took this as an opportunity and dumped the pancake batter at my head. I let out a warrior cry and almost jumped on Asher when Aiden grabbed me by waist but I managed to grab one of the juice carton. I squeezed it out on Aiden, he shrieked and uncaged me. Before Asher can do anything, I threw rest on him. "Oh you are so dead, Astrid-bear!" My eyes widened and I quickly picked up the eggs behind me as Aiden unscrewed the milk carton. It was 2 against one and so damn unfair but I wasn't backing up. Just as Aiden threw milk at me, I threw an egg at him and another at Asher who was raiding fridge for ammunition. My eyes fell on dad who was standing in the middle of kitchen in absolute horror. Obviously he was covered in food. Taking advantage of my distraction, Aiden squeezed maple syrup in my hair while Asher threw jelly. I screeched when cold sticky substance slid down my face. I was angry now. I threw my eggs on them mercilessly, giving them no chance to fire back. My eyes fell on ketchup when the eggs ended. I picked it up but shrieked in horror when a whole pie landed on my back. Turning around, I squeezed the ketchup on their faces. They winced and tried to shield themselves but I gave no mercy. As they tended to their burning eyes, I grabbed the half eaten piece of cake from fridge and dumped it on Asher's head just then a pizza slice landed on mine. I growled and took a handful of cake from Asher head and slapped it on Aiden's face. "STOP!!" All three of us froze in comical poses and sheepishly turned our faces towards dad who was red with anger. "CLEAN MY KITCHEN RIGHT NOW OR I WILL KICK YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE?!" We flinched as dad threw his apron and marched out of kitchen, possibly for a shower. Wow. Now I know why Asher and Aiden are scared of dad's anger. ~~~~~~~ "Your fault." "It's your fault." "No, yours." "Really? Asher shouldn't have thrown batter at me!" "You shouldn't have saran wrapped our toilets!" "You shouldn't have filled my room with inflated balloons that had my supplies inside them!" "You shouldn't have changed my autocorrect." "And vandalized my baby!" "You both broke my phone!" "Boo hoo. Cry me a river, build a bridge and get over it!" Asher used his best stuck up snob expression and I couldn't help but sneak a look at Aiden. The moment our eyes met, we laughed. Like literally the bending-down-on-knees-while-clutching-your-stomach kind of laugh. "Sometimes I really wonder if they are bipolar." I heard dad's voice. We looked up and saw Alex and Rose standing there with amused and mocking expressions. I literally saw Asher's eyes light up and then flood with panic as he looked down at his state. I frowned at his expression and made the mistake of looking down at myself. What the-?! I totally forgot about the food fight and when I looked at myself for the first time, I noticed that I must be looking like some zombie that crawled out of a food factory's garbage as I was covered in jelly, milk, syrup, pie and batter. Aiden and Asher were no better. They looked as disgusting as they smelled. Before we were rudely disrupted, we were trying to clean up the havoc we created. Keyword being trying. I looked up again and gave a sheepish smile to Alex who seemed distant. A sad smile graced his lips and I immediately knew what he was thinking. I broke his chain of thoughts. "What are you both doing here?" confusion laced my tone. "Oh yeah! I have an amazing thing to tell you and I called but neither of you were picking up. So we dialled the landline and Henry answered. He told us to come over as dare I quote 'his children are busy putting pigs to shame right now'." Rose teased. Three of us looked at dad in accusation. He threw his hands up in surrender. "He wasn't lying after all." Alex laughed and I grumbled a shut up. "Come on we will help you clean up." "You will?" me and my siblings asked Rose, hopefully. Dad clicked his tongue in disapproval and steered both of them towards the family room. I groaned. "Let's get this over with." ~~~~~~ It took a 40 minute shower to get rid of every bit of food stuck in my hair and ear. I felt so refreshing and relaxed when I was done, that I almost wanted to sleep as I didn't get much rest last night but then I heard laughter from downstairs and recalled Alex and Rose's presence. Feeling guilty of making them wait, I quickly scramble down. "Hey." My eyes fell on TV and grew into size of Jupiter. "WHAT THE HELL?!" I quickly blocked everyone's view of TV as I stood in front of it, blushing furiously. All they did was, laugh harder. "Oh! They wanted to see your childhood videos. I said why not." Aiden shrugged and stood up from couch. My eyes narrowed at him. "After all, you were the most adorable Parker kid." He pinched my cheek and before I could slap his hand away, he picked me up and threw me on his shoulder. I shrieked. "Put the clip where this squirt is crying because she didn't want to eat her 'cute' sandwich." Aiden ordered while I thrashed around in his arms. Everybody was watching us in amusement. "I am offended, Aiden. Just because we share the same face, doesn't mean that I was ugly like you." Asher chided while searching for video. I blinked and looked at Asher incredulously. I am sure Aiden had the same expression as only thought that ran through my mind was, how are we even related? Finally the said video came over and I groaned as everybody cooed or laughed. "I hate you so much right now." I grumbled and covered my red face in Aiden's hood. He was holding me as if I was weightless. "Are you sure about that?" "Yup. Two hundred thousand million percent sure." I exaggerated. I bet my college fund that he rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say squirt, don't forget that my name was the first thing you said after a long dark silence." That shut me up. A small loving smile played on my lips as I remembered the memory. "Yeah." I smiled against his back. His hold on me tightened and Asher took this as his cue to play the emotional memory. "She was um-" "They know a few bits." I informed Asher. "She was in coma for a while due to an accident in which she lost 6 years of her memory permanently." Aiden's hold tightened and dad looked down at his lap. "When she woke up, we had a hard time to open her up to us and when she finally did, the first time we heard her voice, was when she called Aiden. To us, her first word was Aiden." Asher smiled and rubbed his eyes. I saw Rose give him a side hug while Alex looked lost in his thoughts. His eyes looked tortured. I felt pain course through me when I saw him like that. Aiden gently put me down and kissed my forehead. I had to change the topic again.